Do you ever think about how many calories you get through during a night out at Crisis or Ocean? Or what you could’ve eaten instead of drinking those Jägerbombs? According to a recent poll of 2,000 people carried out by the Royal Society of Public Health, 80% of those asked didn’t know how many calories were in a large glass of wine and 60% in a pint of beer. If you’re in that percentage, it’s 230 for the wine and 180 for the beer.
Along with public health experts, alcohol education charities like Drinkaware are also backing plans to put calorie content labels on alcohol bottles in an attempt to help control the country’s high level of obesity. Under current European Law, drinks manufacturers aren’t required to put calorie information on their drinks, only alcohol content. However, there will be a vote by the European Commission in December which will decide if calorie labels, similar to the ones found on food packaging, should be placed onto alcohol products.
I confess to spending a lot of time analysing calorie labels on sandwiches when buying a Boots meal deal, so I would probably do the same with alcohol if these new measures are introduced. If calorie content labels were put on alcohol, would you choose differently when buying for pre-drinks? Would you swap that pint of Magners for vodka and (diet) lemonade?
Drinkaware have a useful calorie calculator where you can add up your drinks from the night before and find out how many calories and units you got through. Annoyingly, it also tells you how many burgers you could’ve eaten instead and how long you’d have to run for in order to burn those calories – talk about feeling guilty! Here’s the link if you’re brave enough.
If you’re not feeling bad enough after that then you might do after imagining what those liquid calories look like in junk food form. Here are some examples courtesy once again of Drinkaware:
Will you be keeping a tally of your calories on your next night out? Or will you just accept that eating healthily and hitting the gym the following day will make up for it?
Edited by Georgina Varley
Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29821860
http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/understand-your-drinking/unit-calculator
Image Sources:
http://www.siennamarina.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/wine.jpg
http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/check-the-facts/health-effects-of-alcohol/appearance/calories-in-alcohol